I am a good parent.  I love this person - a lot.  When she is far from me - and that's 90% of my life - I think about her.  When she Facetimes, Skypes or leaves a WhatsApp message I run.  I don't want to miss the opportunity to talk to this girl.  She makes me laugh.  She talks - a lot.  She tells me about her day.  She swoons over "swoon worthy" events.  We giggle.  She listens.  I inject Mom advice when solicited ... and even when not.  She is my first-born.  We've been through a lot together, bless her heart.  She was the child that got the first home haircut that taught me to never cut future children's hair.  She was the child that got the strictest parenting until we realized we needed to chill and trust our children and our parenting.  She was the opener of my heart in places that made room for future children.

I am a good parent.  When this person was delivered into insecure hands of a 27-year-old me, I was smitten.  With my limited resources, I provided everything I could for her.  If it was 2:00 a.m. feedings, she got 2:00 a.m. feedings.  If it was another episode of Barney, she got another episode of Barney.  If it was another push on the swing, another push on the swing is what she got.

As she grew up, so did her needs.  I still wanted the best.  However, my resources were limited.  I couldn't make kids at school not be mean.  I couldn't infuse her brain with information needed for Chemistry tests.  I couldn't soothe a first broken heart.  Limited.  I was oh so limited.  My desire to provide outweighed my ability to provide.

I'm telling you, God is a master teacher.  I can't get away from this theme of "confidence and boldness".  As I'm sitting in my favorite chair by my window that I normally sit and talk to God ... and listen ... Shazam!  I John 5 is flooded with more themes of ... you got it ... CONFIDENCE AND BOLDNESS.

"For every child of God defeats this evil world and we achieve this victory through our faith."  (4)

It's our faith - not the mustering of faith to work up to a certain level and believe enough and do the right things - simply our faith in Christ that is the secret weapon to defeating the evil one.  Faith.  Just faith.

When I believe, that my faith IN Christ and not IN me, is the secret weapon to so many battles ... but especially here with the evil one ... when I'm secure in that ... I can come to Him and act in the middle of crummy circumstances with confidence and boldness.

But wait ... there's more.

"And we are confident that he hears whenever we ask for anything that pleases him.  And since we know he hears us whne we make our request, we also know that hat will give us what we ask for."  (14-15)

My confidence can be firmly rooted in the truth of what God's Word says:  He hears me.  Admit it, we don't often think that He does, right?  So let's just agree that the Bible makes it very plain that He does hear us.  So when that doubt comes, planted by the evil one, just determine now that it is a lie.  Move on.  God hears you.

What pleases Him?  I used to freak out about that one.  What if I ask for a new car and that doesn't please Him.  If I need a new car, I'm gonna ask.  If I want a new car to show off to my neighbor ... I may need to rethink my motives.  He's my Father.  I'm His child.  If I'm in a relationship with Him where I know Him and recognize His voice, I'm going to know what pleases Him.  And if I don't, because I don't trust my own motives, I'll ask Him.

And then, we when ask, he wants to give us what we ask for.  Why is this so hard for us to believe much less act on?  I've got two theories:

1.  We didn't have earthly Fathers who gave us good things.
2.  We asked God for something He didn't provide.

I get it.  I've been there.

But I'm not going to stay there.  When I get tripped up on what the Bible says to be true and what I've experienced in my own life, often there is a discrepancy.  The fault doesn't lie in the Bible.  The fault lies in my experience and what it told me to be the truth.

This morning, when I scratched my head trying to figure it all out, God reminded me of my Addison.  She wants to come home for Christmas.  This is normal.  We save our $ and buy her a ticket once a year to bring that girl home for the holidays.  However, this year, there's a snafu.  Parker will be graduating from High school in June.  Addison would like to come home for both, but we talked and used human logic and determined that she would need to choose which time to come home.

I am a parent with limited resources.  I want to bring her home both times.  I want to have her near us for this pleases me.  But when I look at my ability to provide for two international flights, sadly, I am unable to deliver.

You see, my Addison is my child.  I pay close attention to her needs ... and her wants.  I know her and what makes her happy and want to provide the best.  And that's when I smile because God is teaching me that I am like that sweet Addison ... and He ... like me, that good parent.

When I think about all the ways I love my Addison, and try to put into my human brain the infinity of an eternal God and how He loves me, I am undone.  To think that He would run to grab His phone when I Factime makes me melt.  To think that He smiles when I continue to talk - a lot - makes me weak in the knees.  To think that He loves me in comparable terms to how I, a small and incapable human by contrast to Him, love my sweet Addison, I am ... speechless.

Yet, He is a parent with unlimited resources.  He is capable of providing all that I ask.  He is not only capable but also willing and desires for me to ask with confidence and boldness trusting in His ability, not my worthiness.

Lessons I'm still learning.

And by the way, through a series of spectacular events, we decided we were going to ask God with confidence and boldness to provide for two trips home this year.

Expecting plane tickets,
Christina